The Arc Editorial Board is delighted to announce the recent appointments of three new Editor roles. These positions lead the Editorial Board in selecting work to be featured in Arc Poetry Magazine and help set the creative strategy for the magazine and Arc Poetry Society.
POETRY EDITOR
Doyali Islam is an award-winning Canadian poet, a past Chalmers Arts fellow, and a National Magazine Awards finalist. Get to know Doyali through her CBC Sunday Edition conversation with Michael Enright, her Town Crier conversation with E. Martin Nolan, her IFOA interview, and her 12 or 20 responses on rob mclennan’s website. Poems from her current manuscript – heft and sing – have won League of Canadian Poets’ National Broadsheet Contest, Arc’s Poem of the Year Contest, and CV2’s Young Buck Poetry Prize for writers under 35. They have also appeared in Grain, The Fiddlehead, Canthius, In/Words, The Puritan, and Kenyon Review Online. Her first poetry book, Yusuf and the Lotus Flower, was published in 2011 by Ottawa small press BuschekBooks, and in 2016 she had the privilege of sharing her work at VERSeFest and Ottawa International Writers Festival. Doyali holds a B.A. from University of Toronto in English Literature and Equity Studies. She spent a few years in Ontario’s Near North, where she curated and hosted North Bay’s Conspiracy of 3 Literary Reading Series, and she currently lives in Toronto. Connect with her through Twitter (@doyali_is), Facebook (at Doyali Islam), or e-mail (doyali.farah.islam@gmail.com).
Doyali will take on the Poetry Editor role from Rhonda Douglas beginning with the Winter 2018 issue. Submissions for that issue will open in September via Submittable: https://arcpoetry.ca/submit/
SPOKEN WORD EDITOR
Rusty Priske is a long-time member of the Spoken Word Poetry Community, both nationally and in Ottawa. He was involved at the organizational level with the Capital Poetry Collective and Capital Slam for ten years, first as Treasurer and soon after as Slam Master. He is also the current Spoken Word Canada National Slam Master – a position he has held since 2012. Rusty is on the VERSeFest Organizing Committee and is the Founder of the VERSeFest Hall of Honour. He also previously served on the Advisory Committee for the Art in Performance program at Algonquin College. As an artist, Rusty has been a member of seven national slam teams, including the 2009 National Championship team. He has been a member of the acclaimed poetry troupe, The Recipe, as well as local favourites, The Copper Conundrum. Rusty has two full length books (‘Library’ and ‘Rusty Priske: Trapeze Artist’), and his work has appeared in five chapbooks and on eight CDs, as well as appearing in multiple issues of Oratorealis. Rusty has performed in venues from coast to coast. Highlights include performing with members of the Vancouver Opera and as part of the Caravaggio exhibit at the National Gallery.
The Spoken Word Editor role is a new role for Arc and represents a commitment to publishing and producing more Spoken Word work by contemporary Canadian poets. For a taste of Arc’s previous work in this area, please check out the special Spoken Word issue in Arc No.78, guest edited by Tanya Evanson https://arcpoetry.ca/2015/10/18/arc-poetry-magazines-spoken-word-issue/
Rusty has taken up his role as of July 2017.
REVIEWS EDITOR
Jennifer Baker is a Doctoral Candidate and part-time Professor in English Literature and Canadian Studies at the University of Ottawa. Her first chapbook, Abject Lessons, was published by above/ground press in 2014. Her interviews and reviews have appeared in Ottawater and The Journal of Canadian Poetry, and her poetry has been published in Illiterature, Dusie, The Bird, Philomela, Ottawater, and rout/e. Recently, Jennifer also performed her poetry with Natalie Hanna alongside the Aella women’s choir in Her Voice. Her SSHRC-funded dissertation, “Reading Agrarian Work in Canadian Literature: An Ecocritical Perspective,” brings together literary and cultural history, post-Marxist theories of labour, and ecological studies of Canadian agriculture to provide a more complex and critical history of representations of agriculture in Canadian literature and culture.
Jennifer will be working closely with continuing Prose Editor, Ben Ladouceur. She takes on the role from Doyali Islam and her first full issue will also be Winter 2018.
Please join us in welcoming the new Editors to their roles!
The rest of the Arc Editorial Board will be keeping on keeping on. You can find a full list here: https://arcpoetry.ca/about/
Managing Editor Monty Reid continues to keep Arc Poetry Society in the black and curates our translation feature. Chris Johnson continues as Coordinating Editor to ensure layout and print production of the magazine. Meagan Black provides web and social media support and is Editorial Assistant for the magazine. Arc’s roster of Contributing Editors provide a first read of all poetry submitted and we’re grateful for their support.